Guidance

Breast screening: using MRI with higher risk women

Technical guidelines for healthcare professionals screening women at a higher risk of developing breast cancer.

• From: NHS England
• Published: 1 December 2012
• Last updated: 23 March 2026
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  1. 23 March 2026

     Added bullet point on MRI reporting opinions to 'Reading requirements' section.

  2. 27 September 2024

     Added clarification that publication was previously published by Public Health England.

  3. 4 January 2024

     The Information has been updated and reformatted into HTML. This guidance has been revised specifically in the following areas: • there are more details on the image acquisition parameters in the new guidance in section 2.5. • there are more details on the viewing tools such as colour parametric software in section 2.6. • all women should have second-look ultrasound at assessment rather than a selected group (section 3.4) • short term recall should be undertaken between 3 and 6 months instead of between 6 and 12 months (section 3.6). • the updated report gives more details on undertaking QC using breast coil element check and Suppression effectiveness (section 4.1) • there are changes to the equipment standards stated in Appendix 2 • standards set out in Appendix 2 of 2012 report on standards for readers and centres have been removed. • the MRI accreditation form has been removed from the updated report.

  4. 1 December 2012

     First published.

Applies to England

Documents

Technical guidelines for MRI for the surveillance of women at higher risk of developing breast cancer

HTML

Details

Healthcare professionals working in NHS breast screening programme should use these guidelines.

They apply to the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) equipment when screening higher risk women and include:

• standards for equipment and image acquisition
• reporting MRI examinations
• quality control and quality assurance